The Diamondback, Thu May 30, 2013.
As the U.S. continues to focus most of its military efforts on fighting extremist groups in the Middle East, university students from Africa know this is a battle playing out on a much broader stage.
Countries such as Somalia and Sudan have long struggled against radical Islam, and only in the past decade has the U.S. been active against the problem of extremism — albeit in a different region — a fact that irritates Nana Asare, a graduate electrical engineering student, because he sees the U.S. putting its economic interests over its expressed goals of fighting terrorism on a global scale.
“I do think it has to do with the U.S. interests, of course oil comes to mind,” Asare said, adding that while a native of Ghana, a more stable state in the region, those close to the violence across the continent are “fellow Africans — African brothers and sisters.”
The issue has come more into the spotlight in the past year as radical Islam has found a new home: Mali. Mali has long been the site of separatist movements against the Malian government, such as a coup in 2012 that ousted a sitting president. But a new influx of rebels fighting under the banner of radical Islam has changed the scope of the conflict.
After an uprising in nearby Libya led to former ruler Moammar Gadhafi’s ouster and assassination in 2011, forces loyal to him, including the nomadic Tuareg people, took weapons and ammunition from the fallen regime and moved westward to Mali.
“Over the years, [Gadhafi] built a band of very loyal militias,” said Bonny Ibhawoh, an professor of African, Global and Human Rights History at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. “He did have a lot of military and political influence beyond Libya, so that once Libya [collapsed] and Libya became less hospitable for these foreign troops … they had to find refuge elsewhere.”
The episode in Mali illustrates how a country the U.S. once considered an emerging civil society could become an unstable piece in a volatile region, Ibhawoh said.
As the U.S. continues to focus most of its military efforts on fighting extremist groups in the Middle East, university students from Africa know this is a battle playing out on a much broader stage.
Countries such as Somalia and Sudan have long struggled against radical Islam, and only in the past decade has the U.S. been active against the problem of extremism — albeit in a different region — a fact that irritates Nana Asare, a graduate electrical engineering student, because he sees the U.S. putting its economic interests over its expressed goals of fighting terrorism on a global scale.
“I do think it has to do with the U.S. interests, of course oil comes to mind,” Asare said, adding that while a native of Ghana, a more stable state in the region, those close to the violence across the continent are “fellow Africans — African brothers and sisters.”
The issue has come more into the spotlight in the past year as radical Islam has found a new home: Mali. Mali has long been the site of separatist movements against the Malian government, such as a coup in 2012 that ousted a sitting president. But a new influx of rebels fighting under the banner of radical Islam has changed the scope of the conflict.
After an uprising in nearby Libya led to former ruler Moammar Gadhafi’s ouster and assassination in 2011, forces loyal to him, including the nomadic Tuareg people, took weapons and ammunition from the fallen regime and moved westward to Mali.
“Over the years, [Gadhafi] built a band of very loyal militias,” said Bonny Ibhawoh, an professor of African, Global and Human Rights History at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. “He did have a lot of military and political influence beyond Libya, so that once Libya [collapsed] and Libya became less hospitable for these foreign troops … they had to find refuge elsewhere.”
The episode in Mali illustrates how a country the U.S. once considered an emerging civil society could become an unstable piece in a volatile region, Ibhawoh said.
Africa’s spreading extremism concerns experts, expatriates
6/01/2013 03:04:00 PM
africa, politics, war and peace
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